Infants Could be Left in ‘Baby Boxes’ Under Bill

Beth LeBlanc
The Detroit News

Lansing — Michigan hospitals and police and fire departments would be allowed to install “baby boxes” where a mother could safely surrender her newborn under legislation discussed at the House Families, Children and Seniors Committee Thursday.

The “newborn safety device” would lock from the outside after an infant is placed inside, trigger a call to 911 within 30 seconds and include visible instructions regarding its use.

The bills expand on legislation approved in 2000 that allows parents to anonymously surrender a newborn to an emergency services provider within 72 hours of a child’s birth without being accused of abandonment. The child is later placed with a family through adoption.

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Safe Haven Baby Boxes is an organization that was founded by Monica Kelsey (an abandoned infant herself) and is geared towards giving mothers in crisis a chance to do the right thing with complete anonymity. Baby Boxes will be placed in Safe Haven locations and will allow a woman to surrender her unwanted newborn under the Safe Haven Law by placing her newborn in an electronically monitored Safe Haven Baby Box. These newborns will be picked up within 3-5 minutes by medical and fire personnel. The Baby Boxes have 3 alarms that activate and a heating and cooling unit in them for extreme weather.
With around 100 babies being abandoned every year and some of these babies being dropped off at the doors of fire stations and hospitals we have to extend the Safe Haven Law. These women are telling us that they want complete anonymity and Safe Haven Baby Boxes will ensure that this happens. For more information on this organization, please visit their website here.